A GOOD WOIID FOR WINTER. 33 



" Wliilst we together jovial sit 

 Careless, and crowned w-ith mirth and wit, 

 Where, though bleak winds confine us liome 

 Our fancies round the world shall roam." 



Thomson's view of AViiiter is also, on the whole, a hostile 



one, though he does justice to his grandeur. 



" Thus Winter falls, 

 A heavy gloom oppressive o"er the woild, 

 Through Nature shedding influence malign." 



He finds his consolations, like Cotton, in the hoiise, 



though more refined : — 



'•While without 

 The ceaseless winds blow ice. be my retreat 

 Between tlie groaning forest and the sliore 

 Beat by the boundless multitude of waves, 

 A rural, sheltered, solitary scene. 

 Where ruddy fire and beaming tapers join 

 To cheer the gloom. There studious let me sit 

 Aud hold high converse with the mighty dead." 



Doctor Akenside, a man to be spoken of with respect, 

 follows Thomson. With him, too, "Winter desolates 

 the year," and 



"How pleasing weai-s the wintry night 

 Spent with the old illustrious dead ! 

 While by the taper's trembling light 

 I seem those awful scenes to tread 

 Where chiefs or legislators lie," &c. 



Akenside had evidently been reading Thomson. He 

 had the conceptions of a great poet with less faculty than 

 many a little one, and is one of those versifiers of whom 

 it is enough to say that we are always willing to break 

 hi'n off in the middle with an &c., well knowing that 

 wiiat follows is but the coming-rovmd again of what went 

 before, marching in a circle with the cheap numerosity 

 of a stage-army. In truth, it is no wonder that the short 

 days of that cloudy northern climate should have added 

 to winter a gloom borrowed of the mind. We hardly 

 know, till we have experienced the contrast, how sensibly 

 our winter is alleviated by the longer daylight and the 



